Global strategy alignment: Key panel approves national switchover plan

From April 2016, health workers to move from tOPV to bOPV


Sehrish Wasif September 30, 2015
Minister for National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Saira Afzal Tarar chairing a meeting on national plan of Switching from Topv to Bopv in the routine immunisation. PHOTO: NNI

ISLAMABAD: The Inter-agency Coordination Committee has approved the national plan on switching to the bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (bOPV) from the trivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (tOPV) in the Routine Immunisation schedule of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI).

The plan was approved by Minister for National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Saira Afzal Tarar on Tuesday. Tarar, the head of the Inter-agency Coordination Committee, approved it in a review meeting of the plan held with development partners and donors.



“The withdrawal of tOPV and switch to bOPV along with the introduction of one dose of IPV is part of the strategy of the Polio Eradication and End Game Strategic Plan 2013-2018,” said Tarar in a statement issued here.

She further said, “We are moving one step ahead in unison with the global strategy for polio eradication; with the switch from tOPV to bOPV in the routine Immunisation. The introduction of one dose of Injectable Polio Vaccine (IPV), we have set the stage for greater protection of our children against disabling disease of polio,” she said.

Dr Rana Muhammad Safdar, the national coordinator of the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for Polio, said the National Switch will be observed on April 25, 2016 — the day Pakistan will implement its switch over plan from tOPV to bOPV.

He said tOPV is basically meant to fight against three types of polio virus that did not exist since 1998. “We are left with type-1 and type 3 polio viruses and to fight against these them, bOPV will be used in the routine immunisation from April 2016,” he said.

According to him, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has directed all countries to destroy all stool samples collected to test against type 2 polio virus. These samples have been preserved in various laboratories across the globe and will be destroyed in April 2016. Along with these samples all the tOPV which is in stock will also be destroyed.

Dr Safdar said that this initiative is a part of global strategy to eradicate polio from across the world by 2018 adding that the first step of this strategy was the introduction of IPV in routine immunisation which Pakistan has already taken.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30th, 2015.

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